


Another Game?

by Star_Nymph



Series: To The Moon and Back [12]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Asperger Inquisitor, Asperger Syndrome, F/M, Fade Demons, Fade Dreams, pinning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-05 01:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14606172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_Nymph/pseuds/Star_Nymph
Summary: The Desire Demons like to play games with her--and they're never good at it.





	Another Game?

**Author's Note:**

> This part of a bunch of short fics/drabbles I've kept on my tumblr and haven't put on here. Sorry if I'm spamming ya'll, it'll be over soon.
> 
> If you have any comments or helpful tips please feel free to write something. I’ll definitely appreciate the feedback! Thank you for reading!

“I concede. The game is yours once again, my love.” Cullen smiles at her with all the affection in the world and leans back in his chair. He runs his hands through his loose hair, beautiful curls dangling over his forehead, golden and tangled and soft to the touch. He looks healthy; not put together, not a portrait of the ideal man, not flawless or perfect. Just healthy. His skin is pink, scarred, turning round and plush with the fat he’s gaining, his muscles giving way now that his training has become less important.

His lips stretch across his face without strain—finally smiling as a boy would, not a man with something always leaning on his back.

His fingers brush hers as she fiddles with a piece, curling around them to wrap them in his hold. “Another game, then? We have all the time in the world.”

His thumb traces over her knuckles tenderly and Eurydice loves it, love it so very much. His hands are bare, just as she prefers his hands, and they are just as rough and ruined as hers. Big and warm. She wants to take them and press them to her cheeks, feel the sandy pad of his palm over her lips. She wants to kiss them and hear him laugh.

But she closes her eyes and she shakes her head. “No. I can not. He is calling me back now.” She says quietly as she slips her hand away. Then, she stands and the garden, the sunlight, the stone under her feet—it all begins to melt and drip down like water on glass. “It was an enjoyable time but you gave into me too much. Cullen does not let me win chess—he knows I dislike it and it gives him no pleasure to do so.”

Cullen stays where he is, beaming gently at her, and she turns as he changes slightly—it’s the playful hum he makes that turns his skin from pink to a lovely purple and if she mustered the courage to look at his eyes, she’d know that they had gone from brown to a jeweled yellow.

Her staff materializes her hand and she begins beating the end against the ground, trying to wake herself up. Upon the third tap, she felt a hand fall over hers and stop her. He leaned down and his breath washed over her ear.

“You could stay. I could stay as I am. Unhurt, happy, no lyrium, no nightmares to steal me. To hurt your head with my tears. We could go anywhere you wish—“ He waves his hand and the melting scene rushes into a forest with the deepest green leaves—“Stay and I’ll be with you as you wish—and I won’t be scared of what you are. I will never reject you.”

Eurydice tightened her grip on her staff and she swallowed. For a second, she is weak and she is pressing into the warmth of the body at her back, the smell of oakmoss and elderflower enveloping her senses, and she thinks of how  _nice_ —how sweet it would be to hold his hand and walk into this unknown with him, but she can’t. She won’t.

“No.”

She draws away from his touch and sighs, “You are not  _him_. You can gather my desires and my wishes and make them real, but you won’t ever be him—and that is who I want.”

There is an echo far from them, calling out to her, reaching for her like an outstretched hand at the end of a dark tunnel.  _Inquisitor, Inquisitor, wake up._

It’s not as kind as the demon’s voice but it could be, someday.

“He’ll never want something as empty as you.” The demon says but Eurydice spares him a glance and shrugs her shoulders, “That’s alright. I never expected him to.”

Then she reaches out and takes that hand—and when she’s lead back from the Fade, Cullen’s there with his dark eyes, his neat hair, his careful clothing, his uncomfortable leather gloves holding her hand, his hurting smile, and Eurydice regrets nothing because this was the Cullen she loved. 


End file.
